With fruitless labour, Clara bound, Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" FITZJAMES AND RODERICK DHU. This rebel Chieftain and his band !" "Have, then, thy wish!"-He whistled shrill, And he was answer'd from the hill; Wild as the scream of the curlew, A subterranean host had given. Then fix'd his eye and sable brow Full on Fitz-James-"How say'st thou now? Fitz-James was brave:-Though to his heart Short space he stood-then waved his hand; Each warrior vanish'd where he stood, It seem'd as if their mother Earth On bracken green, and cold grey stone. James Montgomery. { Born 1771. Died 1854. THE "Christian poet," as he has been aptly termed, was born at Irvine in Ayrshire, 4th November 1771. His father was a Moravian missionary, who, leaving his son at Fulneck in Yorkshire to be educated, went to Tobago in the West Indies, in the pursuit of his duties, where he died. At the age of twelve, Montgomery began to write verses; and after being sent first to Mirfield, and afterwards to Wath, to earn his bread as a shopkeeper, he became so averse to his employment that he set off for London on foot, with his poems in his pocket, in the hope of obtaining a publisher for them. He was unsuccessful in this, but at last obtained a situation in a bookseller's shop, which he retained till the death of his employer. After some wanderings, Montgomery obtained a situation as clerk in Mr Gale's, the publisher of the "Sheffield Register." Here his talent found due exercise in writing for, and conducting the paper. His master had ultimately to fly for fear of a prosecution by Government, and Montgomery, by the aid of some friends, was enabled to retain the office, and bring out a newspaper, the "Sheffield Iris," which he conducted till 1825. Montgomery's life as an editor was at first very unfortunate. In his.paper he advocated liberal politics and religious freedom, and thus was brought under the notice of the Government, who, in these troublous times, acted with great tyranny; an old song on the destruction of the Bastile, which had been standing in type in the office for some time, had been reprinted unknown to him by one of his men; words applicable inoffensively to the circumstances of 1789 were now interpreted into a seditious libel, and a prosecution was most basely pushed on against him for a crime he never committed, and he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in York Castle. In 1795 he was tried for another imputed political offence, and such was the temper of the times that the jury brought him in guilty, and he was incarcerated for six months. The history of this little affair is one of the most interesting episodes in his life. He beguiled his time by writing poems, afterwards published under the title of "Prison Amusements." But the affairs of the poet were now more satisfactory. He had often written little pieces in his newspaper; but in 1806 he issued "The Wanderer of Switzerland." It was honoured with a withering criticism by the "Edinburgh Review," but in spite of this, it went rapidly through several editions. In 1807 appeared "The West Indies;" in 1813," The World before the Flood;" in 1819, "Greenland;" and in 1827,. "The Pelican Island," the finest of his poems. But the name of Mont gomery as a poet does not rest alone on these: his religious pieces, contributed to periodicals and hymn books, are to be found in every collection, and will be used with those of Watts, Cowper, and Newton, as long as the English language exists. In 1846 Government conferred on him the well-merited pension of £150 a-year, which he enjoyed till his death, on 30th April 1854. FROM "THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD." THE Giants reach'd their camp:—the night's alarms |